FarmConners market showcase results: wind farm flow control considering electricity prices

The EU and UK have made ambitious commitments under the net-zero plans to decarbonise their economies by 2050. For this, offshore wind will play a major role, significantly contributing to a paradigm shift in the power generation and greater volatility of electricity prices. The operating strategy of wind farms should therefore move from power maximisation to profit maximisation which includes income from providing power system services and the reduction of maintenance costs. Wind farm flow control (WFFC) is a key enabler for this shift through mitigation of wake effects in the design and operation phases. The results of the FarmConners market showcases presented here are the first attempt to economically assess WFFC strategies with respect to electricity market prices. Here, we present a conceptual simulation study starting from individual turbine control and extend it to layouts with 10 and 32 turbines operated with WFFC based on the results of five participants. Each participant belonged to a different research group with their respective simulation environments, flow models and WFFC strategies. Via a comparative analysis of relative WFFC benefits estimated per participant, the implications of wind farm size, the applied control strategy and the overall model fidelity are discussed in zero-subsidy scenarios. For all the participants, it is seen that the income gain can differ significantly from the power gain depending on the electricity price under the same inflow, and a favourable control strategy for dominant wind directions can pay off even for low electricity prices. However, a strong correlation between income and power gain is also observed for the analysed high-electricity-price scenarios, underlining the need for additional modelling capabilities to carry out a more comprehensive value optimisation including lower prices and system requirements driven cases.FarmConners market showcase results: wind farm flow control considering electricity pricespublishedVersio

Burden of disease and survival rate amongst hospitalized newborns in Himalayan region in North India

Objective: To describe the patient population, priority diseases, and outcomes in neonates admitted to neonatal unit in the Himalayan region of North India. Study Design: The retrospective study was conducted at a University teaching hospital in Himachal Pradesh, and captured anonymized data on all admissions in newborn unit over 6-year period. Results: Total 12449 newborns were admitted, 4669 were outborn, M:F of 1.35:1 and 81% of them were discharged successfully. Overall admissions surged by 76 percent in six years, preterm admissions increased by 41%. During the same period delivery load grew by 24.7%. Majority 64.9% were full-term; 50.4% (6279/12449) of neonates were low birthweight (LBW; <2.5 kg) and 3.8% were Extreme LBW (ELBW; <1.0 kg). Among intramural, out of 20.2% preterm, 1.8% were <28 week; compared to 1.5% <28 week and 14.1% preterm in extramural. The intrauterine growth restriction rate was 17.6% for intramural and 19.3% for extramural, respectively. The most common morbidities were prematurity (40.2% & 27%), jaundice (32.6% & 27.5%), RDS and respiratory problems (19.2% & 9.8%), sepsis (11.3% & 23.5%), and perinatal asphyxia (6.2% and 7.5%) among inborn and outborn respectively. Total 798 (6.4%) newborns died, 10.5% of all deaths happened within 24 hours; mortality was very high amongst ELBW (110/205, 53.7%) and very preterm infants <28 weeks (81/135,60%). Only 993 inborn and 18 outborn received antenatal corticosteroids, with only 383 inborn and 4 outborn receiving four doses of Dexamethasone. Low gestational age, LBW, less of antenatal corticosteroids, outborns, male sex, and congenital deformity were all found to have a significant association with death (P < 0.001). Conclusion: Preterm accounts for a considerable majority of our total admissions. Greater efforts and investment in better prenatal care, infrastructure, therapeutic facilities, manpower, and periodic training and review of staff nurses are all urgently needed to address the extremely high burden of illnesses and mortality among hospitalized newborns; otherwise, lowering the NMR will remain an unattainable goal

FarmConners wind farm flow control benchmark : blind test results

Wind farm flow control (WFFC) is a topic of interest at several research institutes, industry and certification agencies world-wide. For reliable performance assessment of the technology, the efficiency and the capability of the models applied to WFFC should be carefully evaluated. To address that, FarmConners consortium has launched a common benchmark for code comparison under controlled operation to demonstrate its potential benefits such as increased power production. The benchmark builds on available data sets from previous field campaigns, wind tunnel experiments and high-fidelity simulations. Within that database, 4 blind tests are defined and 13 participants in total have submitted results for the analysis of single and multiple wake under WFFC. Some participants took part in several blind tests and some participants have implemented several models. The observations and/or the model outcomes are evaluated via direct power comparisons at the upstream and downstream turbine(s), as well as the power gain at the wind farm level under wake steering control strategy. Additionally, wake loss reduction is also analysed to support the power performance comparison, where relevant. Majority of the participating models show good agreement with the observations or the reference high-fidelity simulations, especially for lower degrees of upstream misalignment and narrow wake sector. However, the benchmark clearly highlights the importance of the calibration procedure for control-oriented models. The potential effects of limited controlled operation data in calibration is particularly visible via frequent model mismatch for highly deflected wakes, as well as the power loss at the controlled turbine(s). In addition to the flow modelling, sensitivity of the predicted WFFC benefits to the turbine representation and the implementation of the controller is also underlined. FarmConners benchmark is the first of its kind to bring a wide variety of data sets, control settings and model complexities for the (initial) assessment of farm flow control benefits. It forms an important basis for more detailed benchmarks in the future with extended control objectives to assess the true value of WFFC